Rich hunters snap up croc safaris

[Redcc]

I thought we had more brains than letting this type of thing to continue. Rich hunters snap up croc safaris | News | NT News | Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia | ntnews.com.au

 

[abnrmal91]

It actually helps to control the numbers.

 

[longqi]

Great idea
Pity they still ban limited guided shooting of wild crocs [with export permission]

That is what is really needed

 

[Waterrat]

Hmmm, so Miss Irwin now wants to close all NT crocodile farms. I guess it's OK to make millions from performing crocodiles in manicured enclosures well away from their natural habitats.

The problem with culling the "big ones" is - they are the best stock there is. They survived their mortal combats, etc., their genes are the top. What will happen if they take them out of the population?

 

[longqi]

Hmmm, so Miss Irwin now wants to close all NT crocodile farms. I guess it's OK to make millions from performing crocodiles in manicured enclosures well away from their natural habitats.

The problem with culling the "big ones" is - they are the best stock there is. They survived their mortal combats, etc., their genes are the top. What will happen if they take them out of the population?

totally agree about about ms Irwin

Agree up to a point about big crocs
What they should do before they are forced into culling crocs, is permit guided shooting of problem crocs
In other words remove the big ones near population centres
Only impediment in place is the export of the skins
'hunters' want a trophy to take home
far too many crocs
money/safety for local people

Agree with leaving the big ones alone in very remote areas

If every beach in Australia had resident 12ft white pointers there, how long before they were removed???

 

[abnrmal91]

Longqi I thought they where already removing crocs once they got within a certain distance of Darwin

 

[wokka]

Putting a price on wildlife is the best way to make them worth preserving in todays capitalistic society.

 

[longqi]

Longqi I thought they where already removing crocs once they got within a certain distance of Darwin

yes they do remove them when close to Darwin or in Darwin
And most importantly the numbers of removals is increasing every year

But Darwin isnt the only population centre

Usually locals just shoot anything too big thats sitting in their back yard
Much better to let them earn money by letting 'hunters' shoot them and they get a quid out of it

 

[Waterrat]

Putting a price on wildlife is the best way to make them worth preserving in todays capitalistic society.

100% agree. Unfortunately, our socialistic government (ALP) doesn't see it that way.

 

[Waterrat]

Crocodiles have self-regulating populations. In limited habitats, the big ones kill or drive away the smaller ones. You take the big ones out and you have a double trouble.

 

[longqi]

Crocodiles have self-regulating populations. In limited habitats, the big ones kill or drive away the smaller ones. You take the big ones out and you have a double trouble.

But their population used to inhabit the entire top end water system and they are fairly rapidly taking it back
With far too many now surviving and still growing there are a few huge crocs out there
They chase away the 4m+ ones from their area and those ones travel
Problem is that they travel into more populated areas

Its a no win situation for the crocs
Some of them will have to be removed sooner or later

 

[mmafan555]

Crocodiles have self-regulating populations. In limited habitats, the big ones kill or drive away the smaller ones. You take the big ones out and you have a double trouble.

Exactly

The thing I really dislike about crocodile hunting...Is that crocodiles have slow growth rates and take along time to get to monstrous sizes in the wild(unless they are from some river where they are fed) so they are pretty vulnerable to dwarfism and a reduction in overall body length if they are extensively hunted....If you want to keep seeing monster crocs and allow your children to see these impressive beasts than you should be careful how you hunt them. Trophy hunters always look for the biggest toughest animals to kill (often passing over smaller/immature animals) so you could see a dramatic reduction in the amount of large dominant males and of course everyone knows what that means...


Some animals are much more vulnerable to hunting pressures/hunting induced dwarfism than others

 

[abnrmal91]

Is dwarfism really an issue given that they where hunted to almost extinction, yet have bombed since the hunting stopped. Yes it would need to be regulated as to what size they could hunt, but it would help control them.

 

[Tristan]

Hmmm, so Miss Irwin now wants to close all NT crocodile farms. I guess it's OK to make millions from performing crocodiles in manicured enclosures well away from their natural habitats.

The problem with culling the "big ones" is - they are the best stock there is. They survived their mortal combats, etc., their genes are the top. What will happen if they take them out of the population?

exactly whats happening with each new generation of Humans, with all the cotton wool the governments keep wrapping everything in

 

[mmafan555]

totally agree about about ms Irwin

Agree up to a point about big crocs
What they should do before they are forced into culling crocs, is permit guided shooting of problem crocs
In other words remove the big ones near population centres
Only impediment in place is the export of the skins
'hunters' want a trophy to take home
far too many crocs
money/safety for local people

Agree with leaving the big ones alone in very remote areas

If every beach in Australia had resident 12ft white pointers there, how long before they were removed???

Is their any type of correlation between average Crocodile size and their proximity to humans/human settlements? Do crocodiles that live near human settlements reach larger sizes on average? Do crocs that live near humans reach larger sizes?

I'm asking this because I remember reading a journal article about Grizzly Bears in Yellowstone that were allowed to forage and eat out of garbage dumps..The bears would just go to the dump( which were in the park) gorge themselves....Because of these easy access to a human caused food supply the bears were abnormally large and then when garbage dumps were closed and moved many miles away so that bears could get to them...overall weight and size of bears in the region went down to a much lower and more normal level.

 

[longqi]

Exactly

The thing I really dislike about crocodile hunting...Is that crocodiles have slow growth rates and take along time to get to monstrous sizes in the wild(unless they are from some river where they are fed) so they are pretty vulnerable to dwarfism and a reduction in overall body length if they are extensively hunted....If you want to keep seeing monster crocs and allow your children to see these impressive beasts than you should be careful how you hunt them. Trophy hunters always look for the biggest toughest animals to kill (often passing over smaller/immature animals) so you could see a dramatic reduction in the amount of large dominant males and of course everyone knows what that means...


Some animals are much more vulnerable to hunting pressures/hunting induced dwarfism than others

I dont think anyone would even consider permitting trophy hunting in national parks etc
But there are plenty of bloody big crocs turning up outside those parks
They probably started off in the parks but with the increases in croc populations have moved elsewhere

When you talk to the old croc shooters who have recently been in the territory they all say the same thing
"Never seen so many crocs in my life, Not like this in the 50s and 60s, would have made a fortune"

Since croc shooting was stopped in 1973??? it hasnt taken that long really to explode their numbers
And when you consider how many thousands of wild eggs are removed from the wild each year those numbers could have been much higher

 

[Waterrat]

If you are to control a population, you're better off taking out more sub-adults than a few big ones. The big ones are helping to "cull" the smaller ones as a matter on natural course.
Similar to egg harvest. As long it's done sensibly, it has no effect on the population size, but you take that many adults out and you have a population crush.

 

[mmafan555]

Putting a price on wildlife is the best way to make them worth preserving in todays capitalistic society.

I disagree...Many animals/humans are ultimately wasteful by nature and live solely in the moment...Putting a price on wildlife will not get people to value conservation of wildlife anymore so than people who are currently poaching rhinos and tigers into extinction for the quick buck they can make on the skins and horns...Most people do not look to the future and most either don't understand or are to greedy to care about sustainable development....

It could help but ultimately it's an issue of human nature.

 

[abnrmal91]

I was watching a doco the other day and it was talking about an increase in croc hatching rates due to reduced predation of the eggs, from the mertons water monitor as a result of the cane toad. This doesn't mean all these crocs will grow but it leaves the potential for an increased sub adult population in the coming years.

 

[mmafan555]

Is dwarfism really an issue given that they where hunted to almost extinction, yet have bombed since the hunting stopped. Yes it would need to be regulated as to what size they could hunt, but it would help control them.

Virtually every large predator/animal is smaller in body size today then it was 100 years ago...Dwarfism has little to do with population size....It has to do with average size and max size of a particular crocodile....If you kill a proportionally large amount of huge crocodiles then the smaller subordinate get to mate and then the gene for huge size does not get passed on.